V. I. Lenin

Letter To G. K. Orjonikidze

Written:2 March,
    1921First Published:Pravda GruzzilNo. 5;
    March 6, 1921; Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 1st English
    Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 32, page 160Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\HTML Markup:David
    Walters&R.
    CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive
    (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this
    document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation
    License

March 2, 1921

Serge Orjonikidze

Please convey to the Georgian Communists, and in par-ticular
      to all members of the Georgian Revolutionary Com-mittee, my warm greetings
      to Soviet Georgia. My special request to them is to inform me whether or
      not we are in complete agreement on the following three questions:

First, immediate arming of the workers and poor peasants and formation
      of a strong Georgian Red Army.

Second, there is need for a special policy of concessions with regard to
      the Georgian intelligentsia and small mer-chants. It should be realised
      that it is not only imprudent to nationalise them, but that there is even
      need for certain sacrifices in order to improve their position and enable
      them to continue their small trade.

Third, it is of tremendous importance to devise an acceptable compromise
      for a bloc with Jordania or similar Georgian Mensheviks, who before the
      uprising had not been absolutely opposed to the idea of Soviet power in
      Georgia on certain Terms.

Please bear in mind that Georgia’s domestic and interna-tional
      positions both require that her Communists should avoid any mechanical
      copying of the Russian pattern. They must skilfully work out their own
      flexible tactics, based on bigger concessions to all the petty-bourgeois
      elements.

Please reply,